Our SB Vacation

Our fight home from San Antonio left really early on Saturday morning, so we planned to leave our house a day early and stay overnight in San Antonio Friday evening. Before we all headed out, Ron and Tyler toured the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi. It has a very interesting history. The boys said the veteran on the museum really enjoyed sharing his stories with them.

This is what Danielle and I did while the boys were touring the aircraft carrier.

When the boys were done, they came back to get us and we headed out to San Antonio. We planned to visit Choke Canyon State Park on the way there and then to have dinner along the Riverwalk area in San Antonio that evening. We ended up staying too long at the park, though, and had to make other arrangements for dinner. It was worth it. The park was so different from the area where we stayed. We were all glad we got to see that "side" of Texas, too. Danielle and I walked a couple of the trails while Tyler and Ron fished in the lake.

Scissortailed flycatcher

 

Golden fronted woodpecker

Harris's hawk

Danielle and I found a ton of wild pig and javelina footprints on the trails, but we didn't see any. There were also a lot of huge fire ant mounds, full of busy fire ants.

 

Tyler caught more bass than Ron did and he made sure to point that out.

 

We had such a great week. Texas is a huge state with so much to see and do, and it's all spread out. I would love to go back and visit some of the areas we just couldn't get to on this trip. None of us can pinpoint a favorite on this trip - it was all such a nice, relaxing time visiting a new area, which was exactly what we were hoping for.

The Wildlife Refuge

After our fishing trip and some lunch, we drove to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. It wasn't a far drive, but the Texas scenery was interesting. Everything is so flat! The park itself was practically empty. We stopped at the visitor's station to pay the entrance fee and see what information they could offer about the park. They were not collecting fees, but the lady working in the office was extremely friendly and helpful.

We enjoyed our time exploring the park! We found several alligators, some still with their stripes. We saw lots of birds, including a family of whooping cranes way off in the distance. We didn't see any snakes, but we did see some lizards and a tree frog. We also saw some wild pigs, deer, and an armadillo. Danielle and Ron saw a javelina. Tyler and I think we saw a coyote. We're not sure what else it could have been, but it didn't look like the coyote in our area. There were lots of wildflowers, but they were everywhere in Texas, not just in the park.

American coot and a pied billed grebe

American green tree frog

 

Little blue heron

Least grebe

Green anole

Danielle and I would have liked to go back to the refuge at a different time of day to take the auto tour again, but we just didn't have enough days to fit everything in. We enjoyed our afternoon here!

Our SB Vacation

We took a "deep sea" fishing trip through Dolphin Dock in Port Aransas one morning. I wouldn't really consider it "deep sea", but it certainly went much further out than we could reach on our own. Their building was wiped out by Harvey, so they were operating from a trailer while their new building was being rebuilt.

The four of us outfished everyone on the boat. Ron caught the most with 22. We mostly caught gafftopsail catfish. We didn't want to keep that many fish, so they put some of ours on other people's stringers. We still ended up with way more than everyone else. We caught a lot of fish that weren't keepers, too.

Our stringer is the one in the middle, the biggest one.

The lady beside me kept getting her line caught on everyone around her, including me, so that was a little annoying. Other than that, it was a really fun trip. The weather was decent, the fish kept biting, there were a lot of dolphins to watch, and the crew was helpful and friendly.

Breakfast Stalker

Beach Time

We visited a few beaches while in the area. We went to Rockport Beach the afternoon after we did the whooping crane tour. There was a long fishing pier that the boys tried. I think they caught a couple things, but nothing memorable. The wind was really strong that day, and it was not very relaxing. The sand at Rockport Beach was more like gravel. That was also where Danielle stepped on a cactus. So, all in all, we really didn't care for that beach.

One day we drove down to Padre Island National Seashore. We visited the much quieter northern part of the seashore. We had hoped to drive down the beach several miles to get to the best areas for shells, but our rental truck did not have 4 wheel drive. There was also no cell service and very few people, so we didn't feel like it would be a very good idea. The first few miles are hard packed sand, so we did drive a little way out. It was high tide when we were there, so there wasn't a lot of room on the section of the beach we could reach by truck. Danielle and I walked a good ways while the boys fished in the surf. We didn't find much but the scenery was pretty and the company was good. The wind was still pretty strong, and there was a rip current warning. It was very secluded, though, and was a nice beach to visit for a few hours. Having a 4 wheel drive would have made this beach much more enjoyable. We checked out a couple inland freshwater areas along the seashore, too.

 

 

 



Our favorite beach was probably Port Aransas Beach. We went there a couple times. The quickest way to get to Port Aransas from where we were staying was by taking the ferry. The ferry was free and ran 24/7. There were 5 ferry docks and we never had to wait too long. Port Aransas is one of those little touristy golf cart towns. I can see how it could be very busy in the summer. We seemed to vacation there at a perfect time because we really never had to wait for much of anything or worry about crowds. I especially enjoyed the last afternoon we spent here. I sat on our blanket and watched Ron fish in the surf and listened to the kids laugh together as they explored the beach. It was a good mom moment.